Karen Read’s thug attorney’s defense team is ready to start demolishing the murders of her by prosecutors after resting in peace this week.
Read is accused of killing her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O'Keefe, outside a family gathering with acquaintances after midnight on January 29, 2022.
Prosecutors noted that Read hit O'Keefe with her 2021 Lexus SUV after fighting on the night of battle, and then let him freeze to death in the front yard of 34 Fairview Road.
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Karen Read spoke with defense attorney Alan Jackson during a retrial at Norfolk Chorever Court Thursday, May 29, 2025 in Dedham, Massachusetts. (AP Photo/Mark Stockwell, Swimming Pool)
Nearly two months after the jury selection, Special Attorney Hank Brennan closed the state’s case on Thursday. Brennan's final witness, Dr. Judson Welcher, Aperture crasher reconstructionist, spent three days in the stands, providing testimony of his findings in support of the state's allegations that had fatally attacked O'Keefe with her vehicle.
He pointed to his experiments, using Lexus taillights and wet paint to illustrate how O'Keeffe suffered an injury to his arm, saying the vehicle's "glance" hit could explain why the victims did not have the typical car.
“If you use a 1-inch narrow metal rod opponent, that’s a lot different than a wide plastic taillight or a rear body panel,” Welcher said. “So when you distribute the load, you can take more.”
Read’s defense team will start filing the case Friday as lawyers Alan Jackson, David Yannetti and Robert Alessi hope to be suspicious of the state’s allegations, which are seen by experts as Read’s strongest member.
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Karen Read appeared in Norfolk County Superior Court for a pre-trial hearing. She is charged with murdering her boyfriend John O'Keefe. (John Tlumacki/by Getty Images The Boston Globe)
Images of accident reconstruction tests by Dr. Judson Welcher are shown in a Karen reading retrial in Norfolk Superior Court on May 28, 2025. (Greg Dell/Patriot Ledger, via AP, swimming pool)
Jack Lu, a retired Massachusetts Superior Court judge and Boston College law professor, told Fox News that “David Yannetti is the best trial attorney in the case, but Brennan may not be the case.”
Yannetti is an experienced criminal defense attorney who has been reading since the first trial.
"His range is what Mr. Brennan might lack," Lu said. "Brennan has all the spectacular talents, and most speeds have one speed, two speeds. Yannetti is an award-winning advocate Yannetti, who started at law school and fought for where the Department of Defense can save things."
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Defense attorney David Yannetti listened to testimony during the trial at Karen Read in Norfolk Superior Court on May 16, 2025. (Mark Stockwell/The Sun Chronicle, AP Pool)
The defense will seek to remove the state’s case, which usually points to Read’s interviews with various news outlets, addressing the public in his own words.
“So I thought, ‘Can I turn him down?’” Red said in an interview with the 2024 survey discovery. "When I left, did he try to get me, but I don't know?"
Read's legal team insisted that her vehicle never contacted O'Keefe while pointing out something or someone else was responsible for the death of the police.
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"Then, when I hired David Yannetti, I asked him these questions," Red said in the same clip. "On the evening of January 29, David, if I ran over my feet? Or if I clamped him on my knees and he passed out, he passed out or went to take care of himself, vomited or passed out? David said, 'Yes, then you have some culprits.''"
Lu believes the defense team's main goal should be to humanize reading in a way that makes her praise for the jurors, while targeting what the Massachusetts Police Department calls cover-up plans.
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Lu told Fox News Digital that he added: "Prosecutors have put her in self-absorbing caricatures, and they have to fall into the hatred of (former investigator) Michael Proctor for her."
Proctor is on the witness list, but it is not clear whether the defense will put him on the standpoint. The prosecutor did not call him this time after his testimony at the first trial, as the juror shook his head when he heard the inappropriate text of his reading in court. The case ended with a wrong trial, and a few days before the second trial began, he lost his job.
Red pleaded not guilty. If convicted, she faces the possibility of life imprisonment on the worst charges for murder.
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"At present, Ms. Reid's legal case has been severely injured," Lu said. "Mr. Yannetti has the ability to attract a jury, fight the judge as needed, face defense witnesses (some of whom are hostile) and inspire the jury at the end."